


Sparring

by lferion



Category: Coldfire - Friedman
Genre: Angst, Drabble, Drabble Sequence, M/M, Secret Santa, Swordplay
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-12-22
Updated: 2008-12-22
Packaged: 2017-10-02 09:55:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,196
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5070
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lferion/pseuds/lferion
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sparring comes in different forms.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sparring

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Alighiera in the 2008 Coldfire secret santa fic exchange. The prompt for this was: Damien and Gerald, sword practice at some point during the books. Hmmm. Sparring.
> 
> Four triple-drabbles.

** _Wood_ **

Tarrant never sparred with the Worked steel. Indeed, Damien never saw him practice weapons-work of any kind until they had returned from the lands of the Prince to Jaggonath and the threat of Calesta intersected with the doom of the Nameless; then Damien surmised that practicing was preferable to inaction. So when Tarrant appeared one evening with two wooden staves, a plain-steel sword, and a reservation at the most exclusive training salle in the city, Damien was both surprised and not.

It was a challenge for both of them, to spar, to practice, rather than fight outright. It took concentration and a release of all emotion (it would be so easy to rid the world of Tarrant's poison, malevolence and evil, but losing that control would also lose the world Tarrant's knowledge, ability and power to fight the greater and more immediate evil of Calesta) a concentration purely in the moment that was freeing in its focus.

Several sweaty and exhilarating hours later the wooden staves were nearly splinters when they finished, the practice blades nicked and blunted, and Damien understood more of the true meaning of a thousand years of familiarity with the weight of a sword and the way one's body worked in concert with it. He was bruised and sore and felt more alive and in tune with himself than he had in months. Tarrant looked his usual cool and unruffled self, but Damien knew him well enough by now to read the satisfaction and even happiness in the light of his pale eyes and the extra grace of his movement.

But it was the little nod of acknowledgement and the so-faint curve of Tarrant's lips that gave Damien the most pleasure: they had sparred as equals despite the difference of years and philosophy.

 

** _Words_ **

Tarrant never knew when it was that the furious, heated exchanges between Damien and himself became — oh not less charged, certainly not less heated — but less bitter, less deadly, and far, far more dangerous to them both. Words could reach far deeper than steel, affect more in the way of thought, emotion, reason than any physical weapon.

Damien had read the works of the Prophet, had studied history and theology and the working of the fae from a sorcerer's point of view. Damien the Priest-Knight was a much more dangerous man than Damien the Warrior-Knight, and when Tarrant found himself having to work for his ripostes, dig deep for reasons and responses to searching questions, he knew he was in greater peril than he had faced in centuries. Damien made him think, and more than that, engage with the world of the light and the living and all the things that he had once believed with all the fire of his being.

That fire was cold now, but still fire for all that. And Tarrant knew how to work coldfire as once he had known how to Work the solar fae: word and intention served for both.

And so they sparred with words, not weapons, arguing the truths that shaped their selves, their reflections in the fae, their wills and Working in the malleable substance of the world. Tarrant watched (grieving and rejoicing both) as Damien's simple faith grew shadows and complexities, aligning with the Work that the Prophet had set in train so long ago. He knew himself to be altering as well, and felt the precipice he walked with every word he spoke, with every moment spent in company with the threat and fire of Damien's belief.

Words, intent and hope would have to be enough.

 

** _Wind_ **

On nearly the last night of their journey to Shaitan, after leaving the inhabited lands and before they reached the first slopes, they halted an hour before dawn, finding a cave deep enough to shelter Tarrant from the sun. Restless but needing sleep, Damien tried to make himself comfortable on the dusty, hummocky floor. There was a breeze coming from the entrance, around the twists and turns of the passage into the cavern where they rested. It smelled of fire and stone and starlight. It seemed to waken something in Tarrant as he sniffed at it, and Damien wondered what he smelled, what he saw, heard the quick intake of breath in the darkness. He knew when he looked he would See the deep purple of Dark fae wound about with the vivid blue of Earth fae. So he listened, watched, and when Tarrant stood and unsheathed the Worked blade to spar with the wind, Damien knew he was being given something very precious.

'Kata' was the old word, a dance of body and blade without opponent, pure Form and Intention. The aching brilliance of the coldfire limned Tarrant in a terrible beauty, and Damien could almost hear the song of the energy that Tarrant moved to and with and within. For there was music to it, and power and deadly, awe-full grace. The Worked blade was as much a part of Tarrant as his hands, his eyes, the drape and flow of his tunic or the sweep of his hair. All moved together making lines and patterns of light in the air, carving the shape of the wind, shaping the very fabric of the world to Tarrant's will, and creating a thing of astonishing, heart-wrenching beauty.

Later, Damien understood that what he had witnessed had been a farewell.

 

** _Warmth_ **

Tarrant had been cold for so long, and the touch of true fire an agony so great (burning, bursting, blackening, all ash and unbearable pain) that simple, subtle warmth was alien, unnerving, profoundly unsettling. To have flesh instead of ice, breath and blood that lived and moved instead of illusion or the mere means of conveying words or the sustenance of spirit, the elixir of fear and desolation. Fear would not feed him now.

He had died, yet was not dead — alive again in truth, not dead or undead, not confined in fire, condemned to all the agony of hell, the hell he had made and that the belief of others had made more real — and everything was new. He was warm (like fever and hearth-fire and the gentle touch of sun in winter, melting frost) and most astonishing of all Damien had healed the rift in his heart (literally and symbolically, as willing a sacrifice as his own had been both willing and calculated) and oh, it was a bright fire that burned beside him, inside him, between them both.

This was a fire to be expressed in flesh, in the press of bodies and the surge of life, spilled hot and profligate on bellies and in mouths, in the dueling of tongues and tangling of limbs, sweat-slick and sliding, urgent, eager, all untamed, welling and rising and cresting like the tide, irresistible as the courses of the moons, or Erna about the star that gave her life. What matter in the moment that this was joy that could not last? That was all unlikely to happen again: to have expression once was enough.

And when they lay, astonished, sticky, sated and entwined, it was the look in Damien's eyes that undid him, for it was love.


End file.
